


Away From Home

by RoboticSpaceCase



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Commission fic, Lance being sad about his bday, Langst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 10:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16217060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoboticSpaceCase/pseuds/RoboticSpaceCase
Summary: Lance tries to distract himself from his thoughts about being away from home on his birthday.





	Away From Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [9shadowcat9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/9shadowcat9/gifts).



> This is my first time writing for Voltron, but I got commissioned for this and thought it was a fun prompt! :)

Stress was something that Lance normally dealt with just fine. Whether it be cracking a joke in the middle of a heated battle, laughing it off, or simply ignoring it, he wasn’t the type to mope around if he could help it. Though the closer it got to his birthday, the more he was finding himself held up in his room, not hanging out with the others anywhere else in the castle.

It didn’t seem like any of them would understand why he was upset. It was just his birthday, after all. They had way more important things to be worrying about, like the fact that they were pretty constantly in the middle of a giant space war. They had to give up spending time with their families on their birthdays too, and none of them made a big deal out of it, so he shouldn’t either.

Thinking about it that way didn’t make it any easier for him, though. This was his first birthday away from home, away from his family. They were probably all worried sick, and there was no doubt that they would be thinking about him even more on his birthday, wondering whatever happened to him or if they would ever see him again.

Staying up in his room wasn’t going to help the situation either, and Lance knew that if he let himself get too sad he wouldn’t be able to bounce back like he usually did. So, with a deep breath and a fake smile, he pulled himself out of bed and forced his feet to carry him around the castle in search of anything that would distract him.

At first, he ran into Coran who seemed to be in the middle of...something. Lance couldn’t tell what he was doing. All he knew was that the alien was carrying some things that looked like little crates made of jello, a stack of ten or so that were wobbling left and right with each step.

“Uh, hey Coran. Need a hand with...whatever those things are?”

Coran practically jumped out of his skin when Lance spoke, dropping all of the boxes and throwing his hands in wild positions that kind of resembled wannabe karate poses before pausing and laughing at himself. “Oh, Lance, it’s just you! Sure, I could use a hand or two. These Fluipan crates won’t haul themselves!”

“Flupin what now?” Lance chuckled as he poked at one of them. The thing jiggled in response to his touch, its green color looking a bit lighter as it moved and settling back to a forest green when it settled. Leave it to Coran to have color-changing mystery cubes.

“Fluipan crates,” Coran corrected. “They’re squishy when they’re empty, but stretch and become solid the more they hold. They’re great for storing liquids and my collection of Stragian rocks.” He picked up some of the crates, collecting them as he spoke. “Would you like to come see it? It’s quite the impressive collection if I do say so myself.”

As much as Lance wanted to distract himself, listening to one of Coran’s rants about alien rocks just didn’t sound like the way to do it. He would help the Altean with this then go see if anyone else had anything to do that could keep his mind off of things. “No thanks, maybe some other time. But I don’t mind helping you carry these things.”

“Another time,” Coran agreed once they had all of the Fluipan crates in hand. “Off to the storage room we go!”

The two of them walked in silence, Lance staring down at the ground like he was on auto-pilot. Even with the soft and squishy things in his hand, objects that he could easily throw and start a playful fight with, he couldn’t bring himself to feel up for banter with Coran. He got along with him really well and the two of them usually never shut up around each other, but it just didn’t seem like something he wanted to be a part of right then.

Soon enough, they were in the storage room, stacking the weird things for Coran to probably use later. The silence between them seemed to cause tension that could be cut with a knife, and thankfully Lance wasn’t the one that had to break the silence.

“Everything alright? We’ve usually made several of those inside jokes of ours by now.” Coran looked genuinely concerned, and while Lance knew the alien usually offered great advice, he didn’t want to talk about it. The whole point of this trip out of his room was to distract himself from his problems, not cry about them.

“I’m just tired,” Lance shrugged. “We’ve been dealing with a lot lately and...I dunno, it’s nothing I can’t fix with a nap.” He offered a smile, looking back the way they came. “I’m going to find Pidge and see what she’s doing. She might have something that’ll help wake me up a bit.”

Coran nodded, concern still clear on his face. “Oh, well, alright. Let me know if you need one of my famous Altean relaxing massages! I give a mean backrub!”

“Will do!” Lance called, already halfway out the door.

He wasn’t sure if he could actually find Pidge, she and Hunk were usually always buried in some tech stuff he didn’t really get, but he figured he’d wander around until he either found her or bumped into someone else. If he couldn’t find anyone he could probably just go and train for a little while and get some of his frustrations out.

After walking aimlessly for a few minutes, Lance ran into Keith. Quite literally, too. His eyes were on the ground and Keith was unfortunately right in his path, not looking either.

“Lance,” Keith said, surprise clear on his face. “I thought you were still in your room.”

Lance offered a shrug, stuffing his hands back into his pockets. “I figured there might be more to do out here. Us paladins always need to stay on our toes, right?”

“Right,” Keith drawled. “I was actually about to come and get you.”

“You were?” It was rare that he and Keith spoke outside of their usual banter, so knowing that the other was specifically looking for him was pretty odd. “Well, what for? Need someone amazing to spar with?” He put on one of his cheesy smiles, hoping that his bad mood didn’t shine through it too obviously.

“No, actually,” Keith scoffed, though he wore a slight smile on his face. “I think Allura has something she wanted to show you. She asked me to come and find you and take you to the dining hall.”

The dining hall didn’t sound like the type of place Allura would want to meet, much less show him something, but the mystery of it was enough to make Lance want to go along with it. Anything that helped get his mind off of things would be worth it at that point.

“Alright, lead the way, captain.” Lance motioned towards the dining hall, thought Keith immediately started to walk the other way. “Uh, hello? Dining room is that way, genius.”

“Just shut up and follow me.” Keith didn’t look back, instead keeping his brisk pace down the hall and away from Lance.

With nothing else better to do, Lance just sighed and decided to follow after him. Something about this was a bit fishy since Keith was the one leading him the wrong way, but something to do was better than nothing.

Again he found himself walking next to someone in silence, their footsteps echoing in the halls of the castle. Everything was a little unusually quiet, though Lance just figured everyone was off doing their own things or were in different parts of the castle.

“Why are we taking the long way again?” Lance huffed after a few minutes of walking. “We could be there by now, it doesn’t make sense that we’re taking the scenic route.” He crossed his arms, slowing his pace and giving Keith a stern look. “If this is some sort of prank, I’m not exactly in the mood.”

“You’ll see when we get there. Just keep moving and I promise you’ll see why we took the long way.”

Normally, Lance wouldn’t trust much of what Keith said, especially since this whole thing just screamed “prank” to him, but after all, they had been through recently, he decided he’d trust the other’s word.

When they finally made it to the dining hall, Lance had to squint since all of the lights were off. Before he could speak and ask why he had been led to a dark room, the room was suddenly filled with light, his friends popping out from behind the table with a loud “surprise” that had Lance gripping at his chest it had scared him so badly.

The entire room was decked out in streamers, weird balloons, and a hastily made sign that read “happy birthday” in what looked to be Pidge’s handwriting. On the table were foods that Hunk had clearly made, all of Lance’s favorites laid out perfectly to choose from, and right in the middle of it all was a cake with little figurines for everyone. It was a surprise party.

For a moment, Lance was speechless, not sure whether to laugh or cry. Eventually, the laughing won over and he couldn’t help but double over a little to try and hide some of the tears that slipped out.

“You guys remembered,” he said as he caught his breath.

“Of course we did. How could we forget when every year at the Garrison you had everyone sing for you  _ twice _ ?” Pidge chuckled. “We even got you some gifts for later, but we figured food would be the best way to start.”

Hunk gestured to the food on the table, a large grin on his face. “I did my best with what we had, so I hope it’s up to the birthday boy’s standards.” Coran, who had apparently joined the party after he spoke to Lance, reached for one of the rolls on the table, only for Hunk to smack his hand away. “Ah-ah! Not yet! We have to sing first! You guys remember the song we taught you, right?”

Both Coran and Allura nodded, standing at the ready to sing along with everyone else. Even Keith and Shiro sang along with more gusto than Lance thought they would, and once more he had to smoothly wipe some tears away from his face so that they wouldn’t see him cry at all.

“Aw, guys, you didn’t have to do all this for me.” Lance took a few steps closer to the table, looking the birthday feast over once more. He was so sure that everyone had forgotten, it was really nice to see that they hadn’t.

Allura came over to him with a soft smile, placing her hand gently on Lance’s shoulder. “Of course we want to do all of this for you, Lance. We know you humans treasure things like this, and when Pidge and Hunk mentioned it to us, we wanted to take part in the fun. And we know how hard it’s been for you up here, away from your family.”

Lance put his hand over Allura’s, offering a smile in return. “Thanks, guys.” He didn’t let the bad feelings from before stick around much longer after that, simply sitting back and enjoying the food Hunk had made while they all sat around and chatted about simple things. Simple for a group of aliens and random humans, anyway.

It was the most normal he had felt since he left Earth, and despite how much he still really missed his family and wanted to get back to them, he found that this right here wasn’t so bad. Good food, good friends, and time to just sit back and relax made it just a little easier not to think about the bad things in life. He knew soon he’d be thrown back into a battle of some sort, but moments like this made it all worth it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! <3


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